Liber Veneris - Chapter 18

Verses

Verse 24

The disciple asked, What is Venus? The teacher said, The name given to the movement by which the mind runs outward.

Verse 25

He asked, Is desire evil? The teacher said, Desire is a direction. Bondage begins when you call the direction yourself.

Verse 26

Whatever is loved appears to stand outside you. Examine this appearance before condemning the love.

Verse 27

The eye says beautiful, the hand says mine, the mind says more. Awareness says nothing and contains all three.

Verse 28

Do not mutilate desire in the hope of becoming free. Find the one who claims to be wounded by it.

Verse 29

A rose does not bind you. The sentence I need the rose binds you.

Verse 30

The body enjoys sweetness. Let it. The prison is built later, from memory and demand.

Verse 31

Venus is praised as attraction. Ask what could attract awareness away from itself.

Verse 32

The answer is nothing. Only thought travels; the witness never departed.

Verse 33

Morning Star and Evening Star are one planet. Waking self and dreaming self are one witness. Learn from the sky.

Verse 34

When Venus vanishes in the Sun's glare, fools say she is gone. When thought ceases, fools say awareness is gone.

Verse 35

That which knows absence is not absent.

Verse 36

A lover said, Without her I am incomplete. The sage asked, During deep sleep, which half of you suffers?

Verse 37

The lover became angry. Anger is often devotion protecting its idol.

Verse 38

Do not despise the beloved. The mistake is not love; the mistake is asking a form to certify your existence.

Verse 39

Beauty is a doorway. Attachment is sitting in the doorway and charging yourself rent.

Verse 40

The cat receives warmth from the Sun and does not compose a metaphysics of ownership.

Verse 41

Therefore the cat sleeps nearer truth than many philosophers, though it will still steal your chair.

Verse 42

Pleasure comes, pleasure goes. The knowing of its arrival and departure does neither.

Verse 43

Call that knowing Self if you require a word. Then forget the word.

Verse 44

You seek union because separation hurts. Investigate whether separation was ever more than sensation and thought.

Verse 45

If all forms arise in awareness, where must you travel to meet awareness?

Verse 46

The pilgrim walked a thousand leagues to the shrine of the Bright Lady. At the gate he discovered his feet had never left consciousness.

Verse 47

He complained that this made the pilgrimage pointless. The teacher said, Only the walking was unnecessary; the seeing was not.

Verse 48

Renunciation of objects is simple. Renunciation of the one who boasts, I have renounced, is rarer.

Verse 49

Shukra teaches the Asuras because wisdom is not offended by bad company.

Verse 50

What resurrects the dead is not a secret syllable. Every morning the world rises from the death of deep sleep without your permission.

Verse 51

You call this ordinary because it happens daily. Repetition is the camouflage of the miraculous.

Verse 52

When desire arises, do not become priest or policeman. Become its witness.

Verse 53

Trace the wanting to the sense I am lacking. Trace that sense to the I. Then ask what the I is made of.

Verse 54

If you find only awareness, Venus has completed her lesson.

Verse 55

If you find a doctrine, continue looking.